My neighbor has asked me to join his NL only league this year. I know very little about FB. I've followed baseball TEAMS for 40+ years...but, I've never played FB before.

I hate to ask a DUMB question but.....when I draft my team of 23-26 players, do I need to pick a 'starting 9' every day? Like a regular baseball team?? Or, do my points just accumulate with ALL 23-26 guys? Do I need to pick a starting pitcher EVERY DAY?

I hate to look/sound dumb...but...I'm not sure if it's like fantasy football, where you need to pick ONE starter at a position every week.

Welcome to world of Fantasy Baseball --nothing like it.You need to find out what your league "settings" are. Some leagues do indeed require daily lineup changes and others use weekly lineups. Also there are many variations as to how many line up spots there are. Might be 8 reg positions +additional middle or corner IF or DH and Utility spot. Maybe even two catcher spots. Same goes for pitchers-- normally 5 starters and two RPs but many variations. Same goes for "bench" and DL spots many variations. Good Luck you will never watch game the sameway.

League settings are VERY important. You need to know if it is a head-2-head matchup league where you will play one other team each week, or rotisserie (ROTO) where every team tries to improve their standing in individual categories (HR, RBI, W, K...). It will make a big difference on how you draft a winning team. This is a great site for information and I don't think you can find a better source for questions than right here on the forum boards. Let us know what you can find out about your individual league.

Seatownfavorite wrote:League settings are VERY important. You need to know if it is a head-2-head matchup league where you will play one other team each week, or rotisserie (ROTO) where every team tries to improve their standing in individual categories (HR, RBI, W, K...). It will make a big difference on how you draft a winning team. This is a great site for information and I don't think you can find a better source for questions than right here on the forum boards. Let us know what you can find out about your individual league.

Thanks for the feedback. I've been told it's a ROTO league--not head-to-head. How would you draft differently for an NL only roto league? I'm VERY new to FB...and don't yet know the "ins and outs".

If I join a roto NL only league, do I need to pick a lineup every day?? Or do all of my 23-26 guys stats just accumulate??

Not to confuse you, but when we say "daily line up changes", it doesn't mean that you actually have to change the line up every day. If you have a player like Pujol or another top player, you're going to leave them on the roster everyday, unless he's injures or not playing for some reason. Most likely you will make pitching changes more than anything else, as they don't play everyday. one of the biggest mistakes new comers make is to not watch your limits. If your league has IP(innings pitched) limits, make sure you monitor this throughout the season. If you exceed the limit, you could be done accululating pitching stats before the season is even over.

What and how many position players do you need to draft for?Usually a lineup will consist of one player at every position in the infield + Catcher, and 3 generic OF spots. Some leagues throw in other somewhat generic spots to fill such as MI (Middle Infielder) or CI (Corner Infielder) or require you to carry specific OF spots instead of generic spots.

How many pitchers can be in the 'lineup' each day?Usually you'll have something like 3 SP, 2 RP and 2-3 generic P spots that need to be filled.

All 23-26 of your players will not be in the lineup every day. My examples above gives you 15-16 players each day that will be eligible to acquire stats for you. The left over players can be considered your bench. Offensive bench players are needed to fill those spots in which your typical starters have an off day. Pitchers on your bench are usually only SP that need to be put in the lineup when they get a start.

Azazel wrote:How would you draft differently for an NL only roto league? I'm VERY new to FB...and don't yet know the "ins and outs".

Basically the difference in drafting for H2H vs Roto leagues is the streakyness of some players. Without getting into Head to Head rules to much, streaky players are not good to have in H2H leagues because when a guy goes cold for a week or two he becomes worthless to you for that period of time and you get no stats our of him to help win the match up that week. In roto streaks don't matter so much as the total numbers at the end of a season.